Henry Manning

I joined DSA in July of this summer, and I first took part in the “No on 2” campaign in Kentucky, where I knocked on more than 1,800 doors in support of public education. As a whole, our campaign reached nearly 10,000 doors across Northern Kentucky, but much of our effort was split between myself and a couple other highly dedicated volunteers.

This campaign, like every other component of our socialist project, needs more people to sustain it. The aftermath of Trump’s election has provided an excellent opportunity to lay the groundwork for an extensive recruitment effort. Since November 5th, we have had dozens of people spurred to join DSA themselves, and I have helped to onboard many of those members.

But, we can’t just rely on external forces to drive membership—we need to seek people out! I have started a process within the communications committee to ramp-up our outreach and recruitment through an active campaign to distribute flyers and table around Cincinnati (join us if you’re interested!). As an at-large, I will continue this effort and coordinate each of our working groups and committees to include community outreach in their programs.

I will also seek to strengthen ties between our chapter and other DSA chapters within Ohio by planning regular sessions to communicate with leadership throughout the state so that we can all share our methods and successes. This will also prepare us to act together on state-wide issues, which is especially important for overriding any cases where the state preempts local laws.

I am prepared to take on these tasks for our chapter because I am deeply passionate about them. I have shown through my dedication to our electoral program this year that I will put in the effort to help us achieve our goals, and now I hope to direct that effort towards growing our capacity as a chapter.